“No nation is better placed to seize this opportunity for cheaper energy, self-reliance, and cleaner air than Australia,”
Read ArticleAustralia has one of the largest take ups of rooftop solar in the world, but new research shows a majority of those who oppose it, do so because of the price.
"Everyone is going to need a way off the fossil fuel ship. Our proposal for flexible, safe, government-backed finance that’s accessible across incomes will ensure that upfront costs don’t get in the way of slashing bills and emissions for every property in Australia."
Would any party really stand in the way if the government introduced a policy to cut bills, give consumers greater control over their household energy and address the climate crisis?
“We know if we really had high adoption across Australian households, that would save them $1.7 trillion between now and 2050. We really shouldn’t think of this as what it’s cost to the government is, it’s what can this investment recoup to Australia in terms of savings over the long haul?”
Founder of Rewiring Australia Saul Griffiths is proposing that Australia needs a HECS style loan program for solar energy. He told Raf Epstein that Australian's could both slash climate emissions and energy bills if they go ahead with his plan.
The federal government is being urged to help homeowners reduce power bills and carbon emissions by lending them cash to install solar panels, home batteries and even to buy electric cars.
It is possible the federal government will step in with its own loan products for electrifying households as suggested by scientist Saul Griffith in AFR Weekend. But with the likelihood of means testing there will still be an enormous lending opportunity for the banks.
Australia has the highest solar radiation of any continent and rooftop solar is the cheapest energy in the world. An investment from the government now will make Australia more energy-resilient and self-sufficient and save Australians from increasing power bills.
“If the government makes an investment like HECS, it will deliver permanent cost-of-living relief, solve the problem of light vehicle pollution, and propel Australia to the top of the class in climate action,” Dr Griffith said.
Into this space comes Rewiring Australia’s intervention like a breath of fresh air in a tired, stale argument.
"Millions of rooftop solar systems are now connected to the grid. The market needs to change to a system that can manage and co-ordinate these small renewable energy generators."
“This is a policy patch on a leaking ship,” adds Rewiring Australia energy market reform adviser Vikki McLeod. “Households will be the heavy-lifters in a future energy market, and we need to write that potential into the market rules now. We need to start looking at how we can unlock the benefits that customer energy resources (CERs) can provide at scale and at pace."
“For the first time, the best thing for the climate is the best thing for hip pockets. Their shift means the entire Australian parliament is now essentially on board. With such overwhelming consensus, we now need an aggressive, non-partisan plan to help households electrify as quickly and fairly as possible.”
“We welcome the handover recommendations, but the ESB did not go far enough,” added Rewiring Australia chief scientist Saul Griffith. “Energy ministers should review governance of the NEM. “Nothing can compete with cheap rooftop solar at 5c/Kwh so it is no surprise the big energy companies are trying to thwart this competition from their own consumers."
The final handover report from the former Energy Security Board, released by the federal government, calls for energy distribution companies to integrate household solar into the grid. But it falls short of recommending the governance and competition reset that is required.
A comprehensive overhaul of the National Electricity Market (NEM) is needed to bring down energy bills and meet Australia’s 2030 emissions and renewable energy targets, according to Rewiring Australia.
"Australia's millions of solar households aren't being allowed to compete against their energy company in the market," says Rewiring Australia's Executive Director Dan Cass. Advocates for rooftop solar says changes are needed to Australia's electricity market, to better integrate solar users, and give them more options to find good deals when selling their energy back into the grid.
The transition to renewables is causing a lot of angst and anger in rural Australia as major projects like wind and solar and the transmission lines that connect them to the grid are cutting across thousands of properties. Now the federal government says it accepts the recommendations of a "community engagement review" which has found a better job needs to done of communicating how farmers will be affected. But there's concern that will do little to stop the so-called "bad faith actors" seeking to exploit local communities.
Rewiring Australia founder and entrepreneur Saul Griffith said: “The technology BlueScope will deploy with this grant is marginally better than the steel it has been producing, but it is not green enough to compete in the emerging market for low or zero-emissions metal.
“As the climate emergency and cost of living crisis worsen, governments will need to invest big in electrification policies like this, to slash bills and emissions at the same time.”
"We are delighted that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Premier Chris Minns have taken up our policy to provide grants to electrify social housing properties. Household electrification is the fastest, most cost effective way to reduce emissions - and it also decreases the cost of living by significantly reducing energy bills."
“AEMO has moved considerably to embrace the potential of electrification but is yet to catch up with the rooftop revolution led by millions of Australian households. AEMO should be thinking outside the box and innovating ways to bring about faster and greater deployment of consumer energy technologies."
"Today’s announcement of new discounts for electric induction cooktops is another big step in the right direction, which is off dirty, expensive fossil gas and towards clean, efficient electrification"
"Hecs-style loans for household electrification would be repaid through income tax. This would put more money in the pockets of people who really need it while simultaneously allowing the nation to put its foot on the clean-energy pedal."
"This significant expansion of the Capacity Investment Scheme will accelerate the transition to cleaner, cheaper renewable energy and help Australia hit its 2030 emissions target. This is a strong step in the right direction."
"Getting households off gas and out of petrol cars is anti-inflationary. It has the added benefit of helping the government deliver its targets for emissions and clean energy."
"To truly pivot towards a sustainable future, household electrification must be central to this strategy. Electrification is the rapid, cost-effective and proven path to significantly cut emissions while permanently slashing energy bills."
“Victoria has the most to gain from electrification, because it has the most households relying on gas and exposed to price gouging by international gas companies. The state government has a clear and sensible plan to lower household bills and decrease reliance on fossil fuels. This is the type of common-sense leadership Australia needs."
Rewiring Australia research shows that decisions made around the kitchen table account for 42% of emissions in the domestic consumption economy. Households and communities are central to the challenge of increasing the rate of emissions reduction and they should be actively consulted in preference to the big energy industry incumbents.
"Community batteries are absolutely critical to the transition. They allow people in suburbs and towns to pool and share the clean energy they harvest, delivering significant economic benefits while taking pressure off large scale transmission."
While successive federal governments have focused on cutting carbon emissions from energy providers, the new government program is aiming to embrace what technologist and Rewiring Australia founder Saul Griffith has called the “household electrification revolution”.
“We are underestimating how much of our electricity we can actually generate on our rooftops and within our communities,” Griffith says. “If we had the incentives set more sanely in the rules of the NEM (the National Electricity Market), and we were prioritsing households and communities, we could be selling that rooftop solar to each other much more cheaply."
The federal government promised a ‘meaningful and substantial’ package of electrification measures in the federal budget and this announcement is the first part. Swapping out fossil fueled devices and energy sources for renewable-backed electrification is the fastest, most cost effective way to decarbonise our domestic economy. It embeds thousands of dollars worth of annual savings into the annual operations of small businesses, saving that accrue over the long term.
Saul Griffith was in conversation with Taryn Lane on his new Quarterly Essay, The Wires That Bind. Electrification and community renewal, a compelling vision of green energy at a local level. Australia is at a crossroads. Inventor, engineer and visionary Saul Griffith reveals the world that awaits us if we make the most of Australia's energy future. Griffith paints an inspiring yet practical picture of empowered local communities acting collectively when it comes to renewable energy, and benefiting financially.
Rewiring Australia claims the move would allow the average household to slash its energy bills by $3,000 to $5,000 a year.
Australians have already taken up rooftop solar in greater numbers than anywhere in the world, Dr Griffith noted. "Now they want the government to help them fully electrify their homes because they know it will permanently obliterate both their energy bills and carbon emissions."
Rewiring Australia has slammed gas lobby group claims that the electrification of Australian homes will cost taxpayers more than $66 billion as “lies,” following the latest PR offensive from an industry in panic mode.
Saul Griffith is a prolific inventor, an engineer and a successful entrepreneur making waves for an electric future. His bold ideas on energy caught the eye of the US president and helped shape the ground-breaking climate legislation that passed there late last year. Now he’s returned home after two decades in the US and has joined with his community near Wollongong, south of Sydney, in an ambitious project to electrify homes in his suburb and power them with renewables. If successful, the pilot project will prove that household electrification is a potential solution to an urgent problem.
Dr Saul Griffith has found himself in plenty of high-pressure situations over the past two decades. From meetings with White House officials and US politicians, to duelling with the powerful fossil fuel lobby, he's made the case for his solution to the climate crisis in forums where the stakes couldn't be higher. But it was a Sunday afternoon meeting in a community centre just north of Wollongong that proved "the most intimidating one by far," he said. "You're my neighbours," Saul joked as he stood up to give his presentation. "If we screw up, you literally know where I live."
The NSW Treasurer Matt Kean has announced $8 million will go towards supporting world first pilots of community electrification. What effect will this have on inflation and reducing carbon emissions?
Rewiring Australia has strongly endorsed NSW Treasurer, Matt Kean’s announcement of $8 million to support world first pilots of community electrification.
The bid to kick fossil gas out of Australian homes, electrify everything and power it with solar is off and running in New South Wales, with the launch of an $8 million pilot to decarbonise three local communities across the state.
A deal between The Greens and Labor has given an immediate boost to plans first formulated by Rewiring Australia to electrify households and small businesses across the country.
101 million machines away from a zero emission Australia
"We now produce the cheapest electricity in the world in terms of our rooftop solar on our homes and our businesses. That produces electricity at ~5c a kWh."
“If we fully exploit our natural advantage with solar energy by electrifying everything, we will create thousands of jobs for tradies and ensure more money is spent in local shops. The air will be cleaner and people will be healthier."
A report by Dr Saul Griffith, the founder of Rewiring Australia and a former adviser to the US government on energy policy, last year suggested a $12bn investment in household electrification over five years could eliminate a third of Australia’s emissions while saving households $40bn a year by 2028.
The campaign, driven by an “optimistic group of nonpartisan Australians”, ultimately aims to prove that it is possible to address climate change and cost-of-living concerns at the same time.
A plan to “rewire” one of Australia’s largest cities by electrifying the region’s homes and vehicles and powering them with solar energy would save the average household almost $5,000 a year, generate more than 24,000 jobs and provide an overall annual economic benefit of approximately $3.9 billion.
Rewiring Australia has developed federal electorate level modelling that outlines how households and communities can financially benefit from solar-backed electrification, along with the employment benefits of rewiring buildings. This is an open source resource available to all campaigns, candidates and interested parties, to better inform discussion of Australia’s decarbonisation effort.
“This is our way to atone for 20 years of f*cking up the IPCC [International Panel on Climate Change] process. We can demonstrate how we can improve our lives and bring forward climate action by 10 years.
I hope this feels astonishing to you; it certainly does to me. When we compare the final energy use of a conventional home to a renewably electrified home, the efficiency benefits of electrification become abundantly clear. With the same conveniences, size, warmth and vehicles as a currently fossil-fuelled home, electrifying the average Australian home would cut total energy use by more than half!
All of this points to a fundamental shift that must occur in our climate change thinking: we will solve this problem through abundance, not scarcity.
Saul Griffith, a former climate adviser to Joe Biden, has moved home to Australia. He argues policy changes made here could accelerate the world’s transition to renewables by 10 years.
“Australia is the first country in the world where the positive household economics of solving climate change will be realisable by everyday people,”
“A fully electric Australia that gets off fossil fuels will keep the same comforts but use about half the energy, with none of the energy emissions. This win-win from electrification is clear. “We should change our planning and permitting laws to prioritise all electric households and businesses, and start training the installation and maintenance workforce for this electrified future now.”
Today’s report from AEMO shows almost 35 per cent of Australian energy was generated from renewable sources for the three months to December 31. But that clean energy needs to heat our water, cool our homes, power our cars and cook our food to fully take advantage of our lead.
“No nation is better placed to seize this opportunity for cheaper energy, self-reliance, and cleaner air than Australia,”
Australian households could collectively save more than A$40bn ($29.6bn) by 2030 – almost equivalent to national export earnings from coal – if they were fully electrified, says not-for-profit Rewiring Australia in a new report.
The research breaks down figures contained in the newly released Rewiring Australia report by globally renowned Australian energy guru Saul Griffith, who is now an energy adviser to the US government. Rewiring Australia found that by 2030, the average Australian household could save $5,000 to $6,000 a year on energy and vehicle costs compared to now by replacing gas and coal-fired electricity with renewable power augmented by heat pumps.
Energy guru Saul Griffith reckons Australia can lead the way in solving the climate crisis, with our abundant sunlight and love of new technology. Griffith has been advising the Biden Administration on renewables and is well known around the world for his passion for energy solutions that don’t just work, but work better than what we have now.
Australia's uptake of electric cars is so slow, that we're not only far behind other developed countries, but we're also at risk of becoming the dumping ground for polluting cars. It comes as the UN warns Australia needs to do more to slash emissions by almost 50 per cent, in order to hit international climate targets.
But I stand here today to make a commitment to the world that Australia will not only do its part, but that we are here to lead, and to help all nations meet our collective challenge. Built into the poetry and culture of our country are the stories of our great natural resources, but also of our fragile continent. Australia is a nation with everything to lose, but also everything to win. We have sunshine, we have industrial capacity, we have a willing and trained workforce.
Saul Griffith, known to Treehugger readers for his "Electrify Everything" projects, has written "Electrify," which is "an optimist's playbook for our clean energy future." The first sentence says it all: "This book is an action plan to fight for the future. Given our delays in addressing climate change, we must now commit to completely transforming our energy supply and demand—'end-game decarbonization.' The world has no time left."
Dr. Saul Griffith, an American-Australian engineer, mapped out the American energy system for the U.S. Department of Energy and is now focused on “Rewiring Australia.” His new work, co-authored by The Australia Institute, is a project that encourages households to switch from gas to solar-powered electricity.
A novel plan to ‘electrify everything’ in our lives could see Australian living costs slashed by up to $5000 a year while reducing carbon emissions at the same time. Electricity bills in Australia are now among the highest in the world and make up a significant percentage of a family’s yearly budget.
RENEWABLE energy entrepreneur and policy advisor Dr Saul Griffith has released a technical study finding Australia needs and should act to electrify as much of its residential and commercial sectors by 2030, before turning to hard-to-abate export industries in the following decade.
"The subsidies would cost around $12 billion in the earlier years of such a scheme, but save $300 billion in household energy costs and help reduce the nation’s domestic greenhouse gas emissions by about a third, according to analysis by the energy non-profit group, Rewiring Australia."
Households are key to Australia’s decarbonisation agenda, Dr Griffith told The Australian Financial Review because they are “responsible for more than 40 per cent of Australia’s domestic carbon emissions.”
Please join Saul in conversation with the Hon. Lily D’Ambrosio, Victorian Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change and the Hon. Matt Kean, NSW Minister for Energy and Environment to explore the enormous potential that exists for Australia in rewiring our energy system and the policies that are already happening at a state level.
A new energy think tank headed by Australian-American inventor and entrepreneur, Saul Griffith is looking to win the narrative war on electrification and help ensure Australia meets its potential as a global leader in the space.
“Australians already lead the world in harvesting solar electricity. Now we have the technology available to use it. With modest public investment in our homes, cars, and communities, we can electrify everything without sacrificing our way of life. If we embrace this shift now, we can enjoy cheaper, cleaner, healthier energy and win the global decarbonisation race.”
Australian households, if supported by governments and the private sector, could be the vanguard of decarbonisation. Castles and Cars, published today by Rewiring Australia, posits that despite Australia’s federal foot dragging and coal-intensive grid, the country has all the tools it needs to rapidly cut emissions and save individual households thousands along the way.
A new report from energy think tank Rewiring Australia claims the key to slashing domestic carbon emissions is to “electrify everything”. What’s more, the report claimed the mass electrification of household machines could save Australian homes some $5000 per year by 2030.
According to a research from an Australian thinktank, running houses and vehicles solely on electricity would save homeowners $5,443 per year.
A report released by Rewiring Australia, a new energy think tank, shows that Australian households could vastly reduce their energy bills through electrification, and cut domestic emissions by around one third by 2030.
"The household is in the key position to drive that change because the household is where the savings will be realised,"
"A new Australian thinktank says ditching domestic gas and petrol use would slash national greenhouse emissions by a third"
The report released on Monday night by think tank Rewiring Australia found that electrification could save the average household $5000 on power and the cost of owning cars and appliances by 2030.
Switching to electric vehicles, stovetops and heaters will soon be far cheaper than staying with fossil fuels, according to a study published on Monday night by Saul Griffith, an Australian-born scientist and inventor.
Electrify everything! That’s the new mantra being promoted by a new think tank led by Australian inventor and US government advisor Saul Griffith, who started with Rewiring America push, and has now decided to do the same in his home country, Rewiring Australia.
“I realised while I was doing the work … that in fact the country in the world with the easiest run at this, with the best savings for people, is Australia,” Griffith says.
"Climate change solution could come from 'electrifying everything', Australian inventor Saul Griffith says"
Rewiring Australia is a non-profit, independent, non-partisan organisation dedicated to representing the people, households and communities in the energy system. We empirically demonstrate and communicate the cost savings, emissions reductions, and energy system benefits of electrification.
Rewiring Australia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the lands on which we live, meet and work and we pay our respects to Elders past and present.
